


This Is War

by No_Birdness_Like_Snow_Birdness (TheEruditeGrammacist)



Category: Don't Starve (Video Game), Don't Starve Reign of Giants (DLC)
Genre: Backstory, Canonical Character Death, F/F, Lucy the Sentient Axe, M/M, Music with No Discernible Source, Necromancy, Other, Pyromancy, Pyromania, Self-Sacrifice, Spiders are actually more friendly than pigmen, Video Game Mechanics, Werebeaver, bit of angst, like twice by the same character, pretty much a little bit of everything i could put in here
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-01-08
Updated: 2015-01-16
Packaged: 2018-03-06 18:41:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,927
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3144545
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheEruditeGrammacist/pseuds/No_Birdness_Like_Snow_Birdness
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Willow wakes up in the middle of the wilderness after meeting a mysterious man in a suit. As she meets others, who all have stories similar to hers, they band together and try to find the man who brought them together, the man who promised them all their deepest desires and delivered nothing but vast and unending wilderness. Together, they face demons both external and internal, struggle to remain sane, and fight the endless battle against starvation. They fall in love and are ripped apart, and in the end, they must make a decision and face a loss that will unite them all.<br/></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Pompeii

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was originally posted from my phone so please forgive any grammatical or spelling errors. They will be fixed as soon as I gain access to my computer, so please feel free to point them out. Also, the story title is a song that was made into a YouTube video, and the fanart shown in the video was what inspired this fic, or at least major portions of it. Same with the chapter titles, they're all songs, though not all of them were made into fanart compilations.

Willow was sleeping soundly in her bedroom when the fire started. 

She remembered being roughly shaken awake by her mother and ushered toward the door. She remembered the fire, trapping them in the living room. She remembered the smell of smoke, intoxicating and musky. The pressing heat, suffocating and relentless.

And she was in awe.

The sparks flew free into the night, free and beautiful. The flames danced, all-consuming and powerful. The smoke enveloped her and she felt safe. And warm. And sleepy.

When she woke up again, the fire was gone, her house lay in charred ruins and she was alone. She lay unharmed in the ashes. Fire trucks and ambulances swarmed the house like flies. Rescue workers climbed through the wreckage, looking for signs of life. When they found Willow, and she was unharmed, nobody could explain it. She was rushed to the ambulances and carefully examined. She could hear words being exchanged, words about no damage from smoke inhalation or on how the heat should have killed her. Nobody could explain it. They started calling her "The Miracle Girl." Everyone was asking questions, but nobody had answers.

Nobody except, perhaps, the tall, thin man in a suit, who was kneeling by Willow.

 

"Say, pal, you look like you've got some questions," the man said. 

Willow looked at him wearily. "How'd you guess? She asked sarcastically. " Was it the fact that I just survived a massive fire that clued you in?"

The man smirked and replied, "Well, I happen to have the answers."

Willow rolled her eyes. "And what is it? Am I immune to fire or something?"

The man smiled again, but this time it was less of a smirk and more like someone who was pleased with their pet for doing a trick.

"Yes, but just immune to it. I can teach you to control fire, if you like."

Willow stared at him. This man HAD to be crazy. Right? Then again, she had just survived her house fire. Maybe there was something to what he was saying.

"How would I learn?" Willow asked. The man smiled his condescending smile.

"Follow me." He stood up.

Willow scoffed. "You think I'm just going to follow you wherever on the belief that you may be able to teach me something?"

"I don't think. I know." The man said, walking away. Willow cursed and followed.

Looking back, she would think I was weird that the officers and paramedics didn't try to stop her, or at least ask where she was going. But at the time, the thought didn't even cross her mind.

She followed the man, all the while trying to justify this situation to herself. She was not weak. This man was clearly frail, if he tried to harm her she had no doubts that she could overpower him. 

He did not, however, make any move to harm her. Instead, he lead her to the base of a mountain. He gazed up it, where in the distance a small cabin could be seen.

"Go up this mountain," he said. "And enter that cabin. Don't worry, it's unoccupied. It belongs to a... friend of mine. In there you will find a large machine. You'll know it when you see it. All you need to do is throw the switch on the machine, and then come and find me."

Willow shrugged and did as she was told. The mountain was not particularly steep or rocky, and the walk was really quite pleasant. When she reached the cabin, she nudged the door open and peeked inside. Once she was satisfied that there was no imminent threat, she proceeded into what seemed like the laboratory of a scientist who was either a genius or a madman. Possibly both. Willow made her way past numerous failed experiments and detailed blueprints. The man had been right, her eyes were immediately drawn to the biggest machine in the laboratory. The switch stood out, tantalizingly close and begging to be pulled. She reached out, then drew back, suddenly having doubts.

Willow was not an idiot. She looked around the lab for the machine's blueprints. The lab looked like it had been unused for quite some time, and yet she felt oddly like she was being watched. A radio on a shelf held her interest for a few moments, before her gaze returned to the machine she had been bidden to activate.

"Now throw the switch," a voice seemed to urge her.

Willow hesitated.

"Do it!" the voice yelled.

Willow jumped and yanked the lever down.

Almost instantly, the contraption came to life. Steam rose off of various places. Wheels turned, lights flashed, and pistons moved. The top part of the machine extended, and what seemed to be the silhouette of the suited man's face appeared briefly in the smoke coming off of the machine. Willow backed up nervously as maniacal laughter echoed around her.

Shadowy hands suddenly rose up from the floor under her. Willow gasped and tried to run, but the hands grabbed her and lifted her into the air. She screamed as she was tossed around through the air before the hands plunged into the floor, taking her with them. The world went black as laughter continued to echo around her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I know that Willow in this chapter comes across as heartless, her parents dying and her seemingly not caring about it, but a point that I may or may not have emphasized enough is that for part of the chapter, she's mesmerized by the fire, for another part, she's in shock, and the third part, she's too busy following Maxwell and learning about how he can teach her fire magic to stop and think, "Hey, my parents are hurt!" So I'm by no means trying to portray her as heartless. She doesn't even realize that they're dead yet, but later she'll realize it and break down. So in game terms, she'll lose massive sanity points. In fact, she'll be the first to start seeing the shadow beasts. But that all comes later.


	2. Crawl

"Say, pal, you don't look so good. You should find something to eat before the night comes."  
Willow sat up and groggily rubbed her head. Despite having heard the mysterious suited man's voice just seconds earlier, he was nowhere to be found. What she did find, however was so startling that it jolted her out of her stupor.  
She was in the middle of nowhere. All she could see around her was an endless forest, bushes and flowers dotting the ground and no sign of sentient life in sight.  
"HELLO?" Willow called, but received no respond other than the caw of a bird in the distance.  
Willow tried not to panic. She hastily checked her pockets for the lighter she always carried with her, thankfully finding it. She pulled it out and walked over to a bush, and promptly set it on fire.  
Basking in the comforting heat of the fire, Willow took deep breaths to steady her nerves. She looked around at her surroundings again, this time looking for something she could use. A few small saplings caught her eye. She walked over to them and stripped them of branches. Then she picked some flint off the ground and fashioned them into a crude, but functional, axe.  
Willow thought back to what the man had said. She was getting kind of hungry. She saw a bush filled with red berries and walked over to it. She hesitated, wondering if I was safe to eat, before deciding that starving to death would just be slow and painful.  
She picked a berry and hesitantly bit into it. She was rewarded with a slightly sweet, tangy taste. Willow picked a handful and ate them, taking the care of the beginning stages of hunger. When she had eaten her fill, she looked up and gasped, startled. Lying half-buried in the dirt was a human skeleton.  
"I hope he went out in a blaze of glory," Willow murmured to herself. "Well, since he's dead, I assume he wont mind if I take his stuff." Lying near the skeleton was a backpack, a mining helmet, and a pickaxe. She slung the backpack over her shoulder and put the pickaxe, the helmet, and the axe inside. She also put the remaining berries in the pack for later.  
Willow continued to scout around the area for any indication of how she had gotten here, where the suited man had gone, why he had brought her here, or anything that made any form of sense in this whole situation. Needless to say, she found none.  
Willow looked at the sky. She hadn't paid much attention to the sun's position when she first arrived, but now it was definitely beginning to set.  
"Darkness is coming. I need fire." Willow muttered to herself.  
She debated for a while whether she should just set a tree on fire and sleep under it, but ultimately decided that a campfire would be easier to control. She didn't want to burn down the entire forest. Yet. She extracted her pickaxe from her pack and set to work chopping down a tree. It was slow going, but when it fell she chopped it into logs and carried them over to a clearing, then found some grass tall enough to use as kindling and starts her campfire. She continued to,add logs, laughing gleefully as each one caught fire.  
"BURN! BURN FASTER!" she laughed, watching the fire. A spark flew from the blaze and landed on her arm, causing her to flinch instinctively. Upon feeling no pain, however, she stated at the softly glowing ember on her arm. She'd survived her house fire without even a burn. Could she be... immune to fire?  
Willow hesitantly held her hand up to the fire. It certainly felt warm, but not unpleasantly hot. She extended her hand over the fire, then slowly, gradually, into it.  
Nothing happened. Willow's eyes widened. She retracted her hand and studied it. Upon finding that the fire had left no mark on her hand, she plunged it back into the fire. There was still no effect.  
Willow laughed and put her other hand into the fire. She then crawled into the fire and sat in the middle of it, watching the flames lick her sides without even burning her clothes. Which was lucky, because even though she was alone here, she didn't much enjoy the thought of running around naked.  
The sun had fully set now, and nothing was visible outside of the circle of light cast by her fire. She curled up in the fire, letting the dancing flames lull her into a deep sleep.

\- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 

Willow woke up to the chirping of a bird the color of fire, singing softly as it pecked at some seeds on the ground. She briefly considered its relation to a phoenix, but dismissed the idea. She smiled and stood up, brushing the ashes from her flaming bed off of her skirt. She picked up her backpack from where she'd placed it the night before, and briefly toyed with the thought of whether or not items in her backpack could survive fire like her clothes, but decided to not risk it.  
A loud and sudden noise jolted her from her thoughts. She didn't hear any more of the noise, but what she did hear made her heart skip a beat. A human voice, one that she had not heard very many times before but knew she would never forget, sounded from nearby. She desperately searched for the source of the noise, and ran toward it.  
"Say, pal, you don't look so good."  
Willow had determined that the man was standing in the same spot that she herself had woken up in. She came out into the clearing and spotted the man, right as he was finishing his line.  
"You should fond something to eat before the night comes."  
Before Willow could react, the man vanished. He appeared to sink suddenly into the ground, and Willow was left staring at the spot where he'd vanished before her attention was diverted to the person lying on the ground in the very place she herself had woken up in. The small blonde girl was sitting up groggily, and holding onto a small, wilted pink flower as though it was a lifeline.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The reason Willow was previously unaware of her fire powers and immunity was because she really did not have much of a cause to test how immune she was to fire, having always assumed that fire was just as painful to her as it was to everyone else.


End file.
